An Expecting Artist
by webcomix
Summary: Ludwig feels inadequate compared to his amazingly gifted partner, Feliciana. Especially with somebody new coming along the way. Partial nyotalia - but only one character. One shot


**A/N: I realize that I don't really write a lot of fluffy GerIta =D which really begs the question: WHY **_**DON'T**_** I WRITE IT MORE OFTEN? Let us amend this! /shoves this fic in your face**

**Axis Powers Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya.  
****Fanart this was inspired by belongs to the tumblr user miaman.**

* * *

She was sitting in a rocking chair, the one that faced the massive wall of glass that constituted as the south sitting room's window. One bare foot gently prodded the wooden runners into a smooth cradle. An idle humming of song began to float through the air. The amount of light that enormous window let into the house was enough to illuminate not just the sitting room, but the kitchen and dining room beyond. Ludwig could only bear to watch from his hiding spot in the hallway.

It wasn't that he felt strange around his own wife, he mentally argued with himself. After all, they'd been married for two years and had already been a couple for God only remembered how long before then.

It was more because of the fact that, well…they wouldn't be a couple for much longer.

She was still humming and smiling at the brightly coloured flowers just through the glass, fingers resting on the swelled up stomach. Fingers that were so different from his – slender, delicate, smooth and graceful in every way, used to grasping other fine instruments of artistry, whether it was a paintbrush, a violin bow, or the slim pinewood handle of her grandfather's favourite sauce spoon.

Ludwig felt that in comparison, he could only clutch at heavy blunt objects like hammers, shovels and screwdrivers. Sometimes, at work, he'd be trying to write in measures and dimensions onto the blueprints and the pencil would snap under his grip. Just because he would be concentrating so much that he'd forget his own strength. In his possession, everything became a possible article of destruction. This is why he was hiding – because of the possible horrors that could occur at his hand to the innocent bulge beneath the paisley print skirt just a few metres away.

She would welcome him with a laugh and open arms, but Ludwig did not move from the corner between the wall and stairwell. It wasn't like he'd written 'surprisingly perfect place to stalk your wife' into the plans, but here it was, dead useful. If she suddenly decided to get up and walk this way, he'd be upstairs in seconds, pretending that he was merely folding socks for the third time today.

He almost slipped into view when the bright clanging of their doorbell startled him. Her head also jerked up, the lazy and relaxed atmosphere broken.

"Who is it?"

Whoever it was on their doorstep was incessant about keeping their finger on the button. She pulled herself slowly out of the rocking chair. Ludwig was torn. He wanted to help her, seeing that she was far along enough for it to take just a little bit more time before their visitor would have their audience. Then again, his hiding place would be compromised.

She had already entered the dining room, much closer to the front door than before. Ludwig hesitated, then darted out and through the halls and study. As he clipped a corner, the lovely plum-blossom vase her best friend had given to them as a wedding present trembled and tipped violently. Ludwig cursed his large frame and clumsiness for the umpteenth time in his life as he thrust out a hand to catch it first.

She opened the door. "Hello?"

"HEY, FELI!"

Ludwig, who was still rearranging plum branches, felt his shoulder tense automatically.

"Bonjour, ma cherie!"

"Felicitaciones!"

Ludwig left the vase and sped around the corner, this time not caring at the petals who scolded him silently with their quivers.

She stood blinking in a mix of confusion and delight at the three men just across the threshold. Spotting the man of the house, the one in the centre shouted again.

"CONGRATS, WEST! You successfully impregnated a woman! About time! Yeesh!"

"Hello, Gilbert," he replied stiffly. "Francis. Antonio."

None of them had been present at the baby shower. Not that it mattered all that much; Ludwig would not have wanted them there anyway. Luckily for him, he was able to satisfy her questions with the truth: Gilbert and his friends had been busy on a road trip for the past few months. Nobody had a clue to where exactly, though. Ludwig – and occasionally Lovino, Feliciana's brother – would suddenly receive cheap, gimmicky postcards every two or three weeks that would merely hint at the chaos they were most likely leaving in their wake. The one from Gilbert frankly stating that they were out of money had caused a panic in the Beilschmidt household until Lovino had stomped in bearing news from Antonio that Francis had somehow 'procured' enough cash for them to get the car fixed. Nobody wanted to know details.

Sure enough, a beat-up Volvo was parked a little haphazardly on the driveway. Ludwig was not pleased at how close the right front fender was to his prized silver maples.

"Felicitaciones, Feliciana!" Antonio sang out again. "Can I touch it?"

Francis was smiling broadly. He produced a box from behind his back.

"You made a baby –"

"– so we made you a cake!" Gilbert cackled excitedly and shoved the box beneath Ludwig's nose. "Delicious, delicious cake. You can't deny a blood relation, especially when he brings cake! Can't you, bruder?"

"Oh, I can."

"Aw, come on."

"What kind of cake?" Feliciana asked. Antonio looked up from patting her belly, also curious.

"Red velvet!" Francis looked pointedly at Ludwig. "Because we know it's your favourite…non?"

Of course, he was right. The idiot. Ludwig glared. "Please leave our house."

"But, West! We just got back, don't you want to know what awesome stuff happened? It was totally awesome! And we brought you cake. CAKE!"

"Oooh," Feliciana breathed. She'd opened the box. Francis had slathered the cake liberally in bright pink cream cheese frosting. "Please, Ludwig?"

Gilbert grinned triumphantly. "You can't deny a pregnant lady, Luds. Very non-awesome."

Ludwig gritted his teeth and stepped aside. The three hooligans pranced indoors, fluttering around Feliciana and the cake happily.

"I mean, we arrived just in time for tea, though I'd like a glass of rosé if you don't mind…"

"Sounds good!"

"Yo, bruder! Get me a beer! These bums made me drive here, but I ain't driving back!"

"Hey Ludwig, can I use your shower – er, I mean, bathroom? And, uh, can I use your phone? To call Lovi? I'm kinda outta minutes."

Ludwig grimaced at the mess of smelly sneakers and worn-out jackets now littering his welcome mat. It was all he could do not to wrench the door off its hinges.

* * *

"Sooo." Francis tapped his nose thoughtfully. "Four more months. That's not very long at all."

Feliciana nodded and smiled. Beside her, Ludwig was only partially paying attention to the conversation. There was a pressing issue of how to get Antonio's feet off his coffee table, and how to tell him to do so without being rude or pushy. Gilbert peered around at them from his seat on the floor, mouth still full of cake.

"Lookit dat baby bump!" Ludwig resisted the desire to slap his brother's nose way from sniffing away at his wife's stomach. "It's massive. And still gonna grow?"

Everybody else laughed. "Definitely yours, bruder."

"I think it only looks big on Feli," Antonio said. "Imagine if Ludwig was holding the baby. Much smaller looking!"

Laughing shook the house again. Ludwig instinctively stiffened, looking down at his hands.

"That's right, Luds. Don't crush your own kid!"

He shot his brother a look, but Gilbert was draining the last of his glass. Of course, it was just a joke. Gilbert could be shamelessly, obnoxiously flippant. Having had him as a caretaker at certain moments in his youth, Ludwig knew exactly what to do and not to do with a child. Gilbert knew too. It was a joke. Only.

But feeling his fingers flex sent a shiver down his spine.

Suddenly, Antonio's feet disappeared from view. Ludwig glanced up and to his surprise the unexpected guests were actually making to leave. Francis clapped him on the back heartily as Antonio embraced Feliciana.

"You should go see Lovi; he'll be really excited to see you!"

"…He'll bite his head off."

Antonio shrugged. "Ehh, but she's right! Vamos, amigos."

Ludwig stood by the open door as the three trotted towards it, collecting their discarded belongings from the floor. Nudging and winking in the most un-subtle way possible, Gilbert, Francis, and Antonio bade their farewells and piled into their wreck of a car. After another close call with the maples, it puttered down the street. Ludwig mentally wished them luck, if their next destination was truly Lovino Vargas's flat.

* * *

The impromptu tea party had left the Beilschmidt household with a stack of dirty plates and cutlery. Ludwig gallantly offered to do the washing up in the kitchen, assuring Feliciana that it was nothing and that she really ought to rest. His wife was more than happy to skip (or more like waddle) off to the sun room again, this time with a book on Caravaggio in hand.

Once again, all was quiet in the house. Ludwig focused on his task, devising a neat system: clearing off the crumbs and globs of frosting off with water, followed by a swift wipe down of detergent suds across all surfaces, ending with one last rinse before placing the dish neatly on the drying rack. He liked the order and efficiency of the plan.

As he worked, the same careless hum from earlier on wafted in on the breeze to reach his ears. Scrubbing down a wine glass vigorously, Ludwig tried to imagine what she was doing, just behind the wall. The book had probably lost its readers by the fifth page, and had fallen to the smooth hardwood floor, forgotten. The light would ignite a halo behind her copper hair. Feliciana would have set the chair rocking again, thinking about other inspiring ways to decorate the baby's room, or what kind of toys it deserved to have.

A sharp pain suddenly alerted him back to his actual location. Ludwig glanced down just in time to see the faint trickle of blood vanish down the sinkhole, almost hidden in the bubbles.

"Verdammt!"

What didn't really matter was the injury. It was small, no more lethal than a paper cut, and he had dealt with much worse. What did matter was the glass – the stem snapped cleanly through the centre, the jagged horizontal line gleaming brightly from the water and light.

"Ludwig?"

Having heard the cry, she had wandered over, full of curiosity and concern. Ludwig dropped the rest of the glass into the sink in despair, the resulting clinks sounding more pitiful than angry.

"Don't worry!" Feliciana picked up the broken halves carefully. "There are more, and we never have more than five people over anyway."

"It's not that," he said. Water continued to drip off his fingertips. "I'm too clumsy, too careless, too dangerous. There isn't anything I can do without ruining some part of it."

He leaned against the counter, grimacing and rubbing his forehead. Even then he could feel how much pressure his fingertips were exerting against his skull. Imagine something soft and delicate coming in contact with those, those things.

"How am I even supposed to be given responsibility over a child if I can't handle something inanimate?"

"Ohh, is _this_ what you're really on about?"

He frowned at the grin that now lit up her face, feeling taken aback. "I'm serious."

"But you're always so serious!"

Ludwig couldn't understand how anyone could see this as a laughing matter. "No, you see. You're an artist. You make…beautiful things. They're always elegant and have a higher purpose than to just be used. There's always a quality that brings out the better in people, it speaks to something other than a physical need."

"And I, well. There's that. Need I say more?" He gestured jerkily to the shattered glass in her hands.

Feliciana smiled again. He had no idea why.

"But how are _you_ not an artist?" She turned her head to gaze at the room she stood at the centre of, taking in its high ceiling with sky lights, the wide doorways looking out into the dining room and parlour, the simple and stylish but not too minimalistic colour schemes of white, blue, green and tan. "You made this beautiful house I love so much. That's creation. And who planted all the trees around it? You did. That's like fatherhood, isn't it?"

He didn't reply.

"Look at how much natural lighting there is! That's _so_ smart. Everything looks brighter, being both practical and attractive…and it's all so _clean_, Ludwig. I don't know anyone who makes sure everything is neat and tidy and still working at the end of nearly every day. Except you. How do you possibly mean that you can't be responsible? You're much better at that than I am!"

She moved towards him, a little slowly due to the both the baby bump and the broken glass. Ludwig was biting his lip, trying not to burst out again. This time, her smile was softer and gentler, and even though they were alone, her voice was much softer.

"_You _have a quality that brings out the _best_ in me."

He hung his head, feeling both amazed and awkward. Feliciana sighed contentedly and laid her head against his shoulder.

"And, because of that, you can help me! Now it's probably not a very good idea to put them back together…but I want to use it anyway, for _something_. I like how it catches the light."

She raised her arm and positioned the pieces so that they were directly in his line of sight, causing the sunlight to blaze through in a blindingly glorious beam.

"You…you could break the pieces, I suppose," Ludwig found himself saying. "Make something like a…wind charm. Or a mobile."

"A mobile for the baby? I love it!"

"But it's too sharp." He took one half from her. "You'll need to wear it smooth…"

"Or wrap it in clay?"

"Perhaps."

Feliciana beamed. "There. See? What would I do without you?" She wrapped her arms happily and kissed him tenderly on the chin. "Come along, now."

"What? To where?"

"The studio, silly. For cutting! And clay!"

Without realizing it, he'd put his arms around her too. It suddenly dawned upon him that his right hand was touching the small of her back, but his left…was touching a soft, curved slope. Feliciana's stomach was warm and welcoming, and his fingers were relaxed and resting easily and lightly, no tension at all.

* * *

**A/N: /dies of fluff**

**For a long time I had the assumption that human!Germany would be an engineer, but I really like the idea of architect!Germany now (oh well, at a particular point they aren't too different anyway).**

**Thanks for reading! =3=**


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